MAY 29--ARC Advisory Group (Dedham, MA; www.ARC.web.com) reports that around $115 billion in existing discrete automation systems remain in use today and a substantial portion is rapidly reaching the end of its usable lifetime. A primary function of the group's Collaborative Discrete Automation System (CDAS) Study is to define the vision for the factory of the future and to provide an architectural roadmap based on the prevailing business drivers and emerging technologies for discrete manufacturing.
Information Is Driving Manufacturing's Future
The engine that runs the production line is becoming the information itself and this shift is taking place across all discrete industries. From the factory floor to product development groups and extended supply chains, information is shared throughout the manufacturing enterprise. Production schedules are often based on equipment capability and capacity. Now, they are optimizing manufacturing processes using market intelligence information. Also, product design used to consider just production machinery, but now is based on information exchanged across the business enterprise. Companies are moving from solely manufacturing-focused methods and processes to a more extended production environment that involves more than automated equipment, machinery, and production lines.
"It has become increasingly evident that the manufacturing enterprise cannot continue to operate as a group of independent functional organizations that have separate goals, processes, methods, technologies, applications, and systems," says senior analyst Dick Slansky ([email protected]), the principal author of ARC's Collaborative Discrete Automation Systems (CDAS) Study. Dick continues, "Managers with vision understand the necessity of a comprehensive architecture that interprets and defines their manufacturing enterprise and core competitive advantage."
Real-time Information Driven Factory
The capability to have access to events as they happen in real-time will become essential to running the factory of the future. As this change occurs, discrete manufacturing will have the capability to move to an event-driven, real-time system. Information originating from the factory floor will drive performance management to become holistic and "real-time".Manufacturing intelligence and visibility enables better management of the assets, the supply chain, quality, productivity, and customer satisfaction.
CDAS Unifies the Discrete Manufacturing Environment
The vision of CDAS architecture provides a framework that spans from the production processes at the equipment level to the business systems at the enterprise level. It leverages interoperability and common standards. Previously, manufacturers struggled to unify their business and factory operations. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications offered a top-down approach that failed to deliver on this promise. Outsourcing, globalization, lean manufacturing, and time-to-market pressures are the principal factors in continuing the convergence of IT with production systems.
Further information on this study can be found at: www.arcweb.com/research/ayto/cdas.asp
